2017 Resolutions Cultural Goals for the New Year

Ryan Huddle

2017 Resolutions Cultural Goals for the New Year

What’s the secret to keeping a new year’s resolution? Pick something you’ll actually enjoy. To inspire us to reach for ambitious resolutions in 2017, we asked artists, writers, performers and others what cultural aspirations they have for next year and why.

Published
Dec. 20, 2016

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Idris Elba

Sasha Maslov for The Wall Street Journal

Idris Elba

Go to Burning Man

The 44-year-old British actor, who is also a musician and DJ, wants to go to Burning Man, the annual festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Mr. Elba stars in coming movies such as “100 Streets,” “The Dark Tower” and “Thor: Ragnarok,” but in 2017 he will also move behind the camera to direct his first feature, “Yardie,” about a Jamaican drug dealer in London in the 1980s. A self-described workaholic, Mr. Elba also plans to focus on his production company, Green Door, his record label, 7Wallace, and his clothing line with British apparel brand Superdry.—Barbara Chai
Cover photo: Gavin Bond/The Times/News Syndication

Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry

See an iceberg at the North Pole

Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry designs fantastical buildings that resemble shards of glass or huge, crumpled wads of paper, so one of his 2017 resolutions is no surprise: He wants to see an iceberg. “They’re such beautiful, natural shapes,” he says, “and I’m pretty good on boats.” Besides visiting the North Pole, Mr. Gehry plans a lot of close-to-home sailing off Malibu in “Foggy,” the 74-foot wooden sloop he designed himself. The weekly expeditions will take up to “six hours every Sunday if I can, because it keeps me sane,” he says. Also on deck: Mr. Gehry will continue construction of collector Maja Hoffmann’s 172,000 square-foot LUMA Foundation in Arles, France. The building’s choppy metal exterior pays homage to the broken brush strokes of the area’s famous former resident, Vincent van Gogh.

Kenya Barris

Henry Taylor/MOCA

Kenya Barris

The Underground Museum in Los Angeles

The creator of the ABC comedy “Black-ish” wants to immerse himself in the “salon” of rising African-American creators of all sorts. His list includes artists Noah Davis, Henry Taylor and others featured at the Underground Museum in Los Angeles. There are TV shows coming from some of Mr. Barris’s heroes (Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It” on Netflix) and peers (John Ridley’s “American Crime,” prepping season 3 for ABC). For historical context, he will take his family to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. And to maximize his own time for creativity, the TV writer is eagerly awaiting the fully autonomous driving technology Tesla has promised for 2017. “I can’t wait to get two hours of my days back,” says Mr. Barris while stuck in traffic on L.A.’s 101 freeway. “Plus, there’s the comic-book-geek part me who loves this stuff.” —John Jurgensen

Charlie Brooker

Well Go USA Entertainment/Everett Collection

Charlie Brooker

The movie 'Train to Busan'

The writer and creator of the dystopian British TV series “Black Mirror” says he has barely had a chance to visit a movie theater since 2012. In 2017, he’d like to see “La La Land,” “Arrival,” “Train to Busan” and “all the other films I’ve been meaning to see but have thus far failed to sit down in front of.” He’d also like to watch all the episodes of “O.J.: Made in America,” “which in the U.K. is harder to find than mauve gold.” He wants to try out every major Virtual Reality release, and “read a book—any book—that isn’t a bedtime story for small children.” He’d also like to convince a pinball manufacturer to create a “Black Mirror” table.—Anna Russell
Cover photo: Maarten de Boer/Getty Images

John Cooper

John Cooper

The London production of 'Angels in America'

John Cooper, director of the Sundance Film Festival, plans to see the new London production of Tony Kushner’s play, “Angels in America,” which will star Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane at the National Theatre in April. He also will spend more time on macramé—the art of making textiles from knotting. “I find it quite relaxing to make something so physical,” he says. During high school and college, he created macramé works commissioned by a home decorator. But he hadn’t made a piece in decades until 2014, when he visited friends in the Hamptons, where he transformed rope, shells, fishing lures and driftwood into a gift for his hosts. “We have three daughters,” Mr. Cooper says, “so when I’m waiting for them to get dressed, I’ll be by the macramé, tying knots.”—Barbara Chai

Ann Patchett

Andrew Rees

Ann Patchett

A performance of the Giffords Circus in England

The Giffords Circus is a “tiny, really old-fashioned circus where they travel in a caravan with horses and wooden carts,” says writer Ann Patchett. The circus performs every summer around England—where Ms. Patchett heads next year on book tour and plans to catch a show. The Giffords Circus “is the most amazing and moving thing and I don’t care a whit for circuses,” Ms. Patchett says. When she first went a few years ago, “I sobbed—sobbed—uncontrollably. And I’m somebody who cries like three tears every two years,” she says. “But it was just so beautiful. It was everybody bringing their very best selves to this.” In 2017, Ms. Patchett will depart from her usual practice of starting to write a book only after fulfilling all her obligations, such as publicity tours, for the previous one. A powerful idea has gripped her and she plans to get to work on New Year’s Day. “It feels like a hairball in the back of my throat,” she says. “Like if I coughed really hard, I could bring an entirely formed novel up.” —Brenda Cronin
Cover photo: Rebecca Reid

Mark Haddon

Alamy

Mark Haddon

Visit Hadrian's Wall

The author of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” has visited Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum more times than he can remember. But this year, he has resolved to make an appointment to see the rare Michelangelo and Raphael drawings tucked away in the Ashmolean’s Print Room. Mr. Haddon also plans to see both Tate Britain’s Paul Nash exhibit—“one of the great figures of British modernism about whom we know too little”—and Hadrian’s Wall, a Roman monument that once spanned 73 miles in northern England. —Anna Russell
Cover photo: Dylan Thomas for The Wall Street Journal

Chris Jackson

Chris Jackson

Read the plays of August Wilson

Despite his immersion in theater, the actor who originated the role of George Washington in “Hamilton” wants to experience more of it—from the audience, at least two shows a month. “The most difficult thing to do when doing a show is getting out to see other shows,” says Mr. Jackson, who left the hit musical last month and now plays a sharp-dressed courtroom consultant on the CBS drama “Bull.” He aspires to learn Spanish in the new year and recently bought his first piano so he could start taking lessons with his daughter: “I’ve always played by ear and done quite well, but seeing as I’ve been writing music and composing for 15 years, it’d be great to be able to actually ‘read and write’ the language.” He’s also trying to be a completist in his reading, and says he is halfway through the works of James Baldwin and recently picked up the plays of August Wilson, with a goal of reading them in order. —John Jurgensen
Cover photo: Maarten de Boer/Getty Images

Tim Minchin

John Phillips/Getty Images

Tim Minchin

The American Museum of Natural History in New York

The composer and lyricist of Broadway’s coming “Groundhog Day” wants to visit London’s Natural History Museum or the American Museum of Natural History in New York with his wife. Touring museums with his children, Mr. Minchin sometimes spends more time “getting chocolate milk out of small track pants” than reading about fossils. He also would like to read more fiction. Chris Bachelder’s “Abbott Awaits,” Peter Temple’s “Truth” and Mark Leyner’s “Gone With the Mind” are on his “teetering bedside to-read pile.” —Anna Russell
Cover photo: Sergi Reboredo/dpa/Associated Press

Takashi Murakami

Antoine Doyen for The Wall Street Journal

Takashi Murakami

A tour of Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, Calif.

Japanese artist Takashi Murakami was 16 years old when he saw director George Lucas’s first “Star Wars” movie. Ever since, he says, he’s been a Lucas “superfan.” Mr. Murakami likens Mr. Lucas’s sweeping storytelling style to Japan’s pop-subculture obsession with graphic novels and films called manga and anime—all influences on Mr. Murakami’s super-flat art. The elaborate workshops and soundstages at Mr. Lucas’s 153,000 square-foot Skywalker Ranch served as a model for Mr. Murakami’s KaiKai Kiki studios in Tokyo and New York, the artist says. In 2017, Mr. Murakami is determined to snag a rare invitation to tour Skywalker Ranch in Northern California’s Marin County. “I don’t have an exact plan yet,” he said, “but I really want to go.” The artist also is preparing a trio of solo exhibitions, including one at the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Norway in February and another at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art in June.
—Kelly Crow
Cover photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images

Daniel Radcliffe

HBO

Daniel Radcliffe

'Last Week Tonight'

The actor plans to follow Dan Carlin’s podcast, “Hardcore History,” which examines the past through an unorthodox lens, mixing historical detail with storytelling. Also in the coming year, Mr. Radcliffe says, “I am renewing my commitment to never missing an episode of ‘Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’ or ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’ as I think they will be more vital than ever to my sanity.”—Barbara Chai
Cover photo: Olivier Vigerie/Contour/Getty Images

Condola Rashad

20th Century Fox

Condola Rashad

'Hidden Figures'

The actress awaits Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage’s Broadway debut with “Sweat,” a drama set in an American working-class bar as layoffs tear apart a diminished factory town. “It’s ridiculous that this is her first play ever to be on Broadway,” says Ms. Rashad, who soon returns to TV in Showtime’s “Billions.” She also is looking out for singer and actress Janelle Monáe’s co-starring role in “Hidden Figures,” a movie about African-American women mathematicians who helped launch NASA into spaceflight. —Ellen Gamerman
Cover photo: Jamie McCarthy/WireImage/Getty Images

Anthony and Joe Russo

Brennan Peirson

Anthony and Joe Russo

'The Tension Experience: Ascension' in Los Angeles

The sibling directors behind the 2016 action movie “Captain America: Civil War” want to experience more immersive shows like “The Tension Experience: Ascension” in Los Angeles. That live production, a psychological thriller created by film-industry experts, warns off patrons who aren’t comfortable running, being alone or feeling claustrophobic. A critic wrote on the site PopZette about a woman cornering him at the show. “I came here for an immersive experience, too,” she said. “That was months ago. Please. Save us.” —Ellen Gamerman

Whit Stillman

Panoramic/ZUMA Press

Whit Stillman

Become a member of the Louvre

The filmmaker and writer spends a lot of time in Paris and intends to become a member of the Louvre, so he can make frequent visits to the “enormous treasure” in the museum’s collections. The director of 2016’s “Love & Friendship” also plans to soak up “the art of daily life and the art of the present,” with at least two autumn and two springtime visits to the Auteuil Racecourse, a track by the Bois de Boulogne. “You see the horses jumping over beautiful jumps and hedges,” he says. “You go down by the paddock and you get up close to the horses.” Another resolution? Spending time in Rome, to take in the city’s unique atmosphere and classical architecture. —Brenda Cronin
Cover photo: Chesnot/Getty Images

Colm Tóibín

Gary Doak/Writer Pictures/Associated Press

Colm Tóibín

Pyrenees Early Music Festival

This summer, writer Colm Tóibín will return to two classical-music festivals in the Catalan Pyrenees with a more athletic agenda than usual. The mountains that are home to the Pyrenees Early Music Festival and the music festival of the village of Rialp are “dotted with Romanesque churches” where some of the performances take place, Mr. Tóibín says. Come July and August, he plans to sandwich the early-evening concerts with generous hikes, walking two hours to and fro on paths rather than driving. “The landscape itself is inspiring, the architecture of the churches is inspiring and then the music is just wonderful,” he says. Another resolution? No more listening to Bach Cantatas while “wandering around the house or reading.” Instead, he will follow along with a book that has the words in German or English. “If you don’t do that, you’re just missing the structure, the way they work and you’re just listening to them as sort of background music,” he says. As far as his own output, Mr. Tóibín is ready to indulge himself, after completing another novel (“House of Names”) and a screenplay, with Volker Schlöndorff, for a film (“Return to Montauk”) both due out in 2017. He is expanding three unfinished short stories that now are about 3,000 words each. He plans to “add to them as much as I please,” even though the unwieldy length will make them a tough sell—too long for a story and too short for a novella. “Nobody will want them,” Mr. Tóibín predicts, but “if I get the three of them done by the end of 2017, I’ll be a happy man.” —Brenda Cronin
Cover photo: Alamy

Gabrielle Union

Gabrielle Union

Hugo McCloud exhibit at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York

In addition to her 24th reading of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” an annual ritual she was assigned back in college, the star of the BET drama “Being Mary Jane” plans to read Roxane Gay’s “Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body” and Ms. Gay’s short-story collection “Difficult Women.” “Everything she writes, from tweets to op-eds, I’m here for,” Ms. Union says. She is anticipating the second season of Issa Rae’s HBO comedy “Insecure.” And Ms. Union intends to check out the works of Hugo McCloud in person (at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York, through Jan. 21) after discovering the artist on Instagram. “He popped up on my ‘popular’ page and I went down the rabbit hole,” she says. With abstract paintings and industrial materials, the artist “unearths beauty in things that have been overlooked and abandoned, and says so much to me about where we are as a country and as black people.” —John Jurgensen
Cover photo: Matt Sayles/Invision/Associated Press

Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein

Terry Lott/Sony Music Archive/Getty Images

Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein

See Altered Images

A one-off concert by Scottish new wave group Altered Images scheduled for January in Los Angeles has Mr. Armisen primed for more. “Dear Altered Images, please go on tour,” the “Portlandia” co-creator says. “I don’t know how they managed to sound so poppy and subversive at the same time.” He’s also awaiting the debut solo album by Dirty Projectors guitarist and singer Amber Coffman, and an autobiography by Sex Pistols co-founder Steve Jones, “Lonely Boy.” Ms. Brownstein, who is Mr. Armisen’s “Portlandia” co-creator and co-star, recommends “Lincoln in the Bardo,” the first novel by George Saunders, coming in January. Says Ms. Brownstein, “its sadness and beauty are piercing and boundless.” —John Jurgensen
Cover photo: Tina Barney/IFC

Marlon James

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

Marlon James

Albums from Prince's vault

“I’m pretty good at sticking to resolutions,” Marlon James says. Mr. James, who won the 2015 Man Booker prize for fiction with “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” aims to turn in the manuscript of his new novel, “Black Leopard, Red Wolf” in November. He has set the book in the eighth century, among African kingdoms such as the empires of Mali, Ghana and others. His lineup of “mad kings and bad kings and badass queens and monsters and epics” has some calling “Black Leopard, Red Wolf” an African “Game of Thrones.” Mr. James, who teaches at Macalester College in Minnesota, also hopes that in 2017 “we’ll get some really great albums from Prince’s vault.” He senses a counterculture is germinating and believes “we might actually get some good rock 'n' roll out of it. And some good outsider art…I think that might be pretty exciting.” —Brenda Cronin
Cover photo: Ackerman + Gruber for The Wall Street Journal